Top Ten English Place Names

The roast cream of old England

Having spent some 15 hours or so as a passenger in a car on English roads this weekend (including two hours at Markham Moor (northbound) services on the A1 awaiting recovery by the AA), I have had more time than usual to reflect on the wonderful variety and velvety richness of our English place names.

Rejoice, sons and daughters of merrie Englande, in the inventive dexterity of your mother tongue.

Rejoice also, for no matter how much modernity - or post-modernity or whatever shit era it is we currently live in – would iron out every crease and rumple of history into a smooth, shiny, ECHR-compliant, sensitivity-trained monotony, the powers that be ain’t never going to be able to change these names for something more reflective of the way we live today.

If they try, however, I am going take out a trademark on “Diversity Good Community” – which is surely some people’s dream future name for London.  

Before I begin to sound too much like the comments section on a Telegraph blog page and make reference to “ZaNU-Labour”, let me explain the methodology.

1. While I like smut as much as the next man, I am ruling out places like Bell End, Cocking and the many places that begin with “Gay” on grounds of being clichéd. You will see innuendo below, but I hope it will at least be relatively virgin innuendo.
2. This is not intended to be a complete or fair list. It’s pretty obviously focused in certain areas. If you have better suggestions, put them in the Comments section below like a good boy/girl.
3. In no way do I vouch for any of these places being actually funny, interesting or unusual. I don’t think I’ve actually been to any of them – I have just seen their names on road signs or on maps. I have no doubt that if I went to any of them and saw a Nisa Local alongside a prestigious new development of David Wilson Homes, or a high street with a Primark, a JD Sports and a load of charity shops, I would find them just as dreary and depressing as almost everywhere else in this country. If you want villages that are actually weird in the sense of interesting as opposed to weird in the sense of creepy, I refer you to the fiction section.

So, without further ado, let the listing commence!

Tydd Gote, Lincolnshire

As previously discussed, I love goats and so a village named after them AND spelled wrong has got to be on the list. Tydd Gote is deep in the Fens, where Lincolnshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire not so much collide as seep into one another.

There are a whole host of Tydd-prefixed villages around there. Most of them are named after boring saints (not even good ones, like Botolph or Guthlac) – but you’ve got to love the Gote.

Barnoldswick and Oswaldtwistle, Lancashire

I can’t even say these words without pulling a Wallace and Gromit face. I would like also to give an honourable mention to Birtwistle Standroyd Bungalows in Colne, as delivering the ultimate Lancashire hit.

Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire

Roll that one around your palate, savour the earthy taste of Yorkshire phonemes and contrast with the above. That is the difference between chewing a white red and a red rose for you.

Lumbertubs, Northamptonshire

This whole area looks like a dreary modern suburb, but that name reaches straight out of the Middle Ages and grabs you in its hairy, calloused grip.

Donkey Town, Surrey

We used to live just a few miles from Donkey Town and yet we never went there. How amazing would a town of donkeys be? Probably about as amazing as Dewsbury.

Blubberhouses, North Yorkshire

That is a name that speaks for itself in all its Anglo-Saxon glory.

Lickfold, West Sussex

I promised you smut. Lickfold is very near to the almost as ridiculously-named Lurgashall, in what can only have been intended as an early public health warning.

Burton Coggles, Lincolnshire

Or, to give it its full name, Byrton-en-les-Coggles. Don’t let the sun go down on you here unless you know the secret of man’s red fire.

Hampole, South Yorkshire

Just off the A1, near to the city of Donk. Never fails to raise a smile.

Clenchwarton, Norfolk

Not far from Tydd Gote lies my favourite-named place in the whole country. Regular readers of the Comments section will know my fascination with the word “clench”, and here it is seared into the very land.

Say it out loud and you can taste the piece of grass in your mouth, feel the clay hat dribbling down your head and the rough canvas smock tickling you on the clenchwarton. If there is a more English place - nay WORD - out there than this, I have yet to hear it.